chrisrickett.com

While it is always common to see neighbours complaining about new residential developments that propose to bring new people to the neighbourhood, this recent case in Stratford takes the cake for me.

The proposal involves the development of 42 upscale townhouses and single-detached dwellings along Romeo Street in the city’s north east.  The lands are just north of McCarthy Road on the east side of Romeo Street and were once home to a children’s theme park that closed decades ago.

This area is covered by the city’s North East Secondary Plan which was approved back in 2007 when I was on council.  The neighbours who are complaining reside in a development called North Pointe – this was a contentious part of the plan, as it resulted in a forest being cut down to make way for new homes.

Of course, this is where it gets interesting, as the residents of North Pointe are now upset that a new residential development is going to be plunked down beside their homes.  This is the typical response of many who move to the suburbs – they want the life of the city with the view of the country.   Yet, without a hint of irony, they complain when a new development that plans to offer the same life to another set of buyers proposes to envelope their homes and cut-off their views.

Given that the proposed development is generally of the same density, they decided their route of attack would be stormwater controls and loss of a natural area.  Admittedly, these are two arguments that I would usually listen to – after all, preserving natural areas and ensuring proper stormwater controls are two issues I always championed on council.  When it comes to stormwater, this was really addressed by the overall plan for the area – stormwater controls were developed to address all future development in the city’s north east, including the proposed development.

The second issue, loss of natural space, though is a tough one to sell - first off, I don’t have any sympathy for someone who wants to preserve natural space when it’s convenient for them, when the very home they bought resulted in a forest being cut down; secondly, the development will have minimal impact on the remaining natural areas, as they are mainly within the floodplain where no development is permitted anyway.

I think the most interesting aspect of this entire story though is that former City Councillor and Chair of the Planning and Heritage Committee, Kathy Rae, was one of the residents who complained about the proposed development.  The irony here is that former Councillor Rae was the one who led the development of the North East Secondary Plan, so she would have known from day one the proposed future uses of the property in question.  She would have also known that stormwater issues had already addressed.  I have the utmost respect for former Councillor Rae and she was always someone you could count on at council to take a big picture view of the issue; however, in this situation, it shows just how short-sighted people become when it comes to the neighbourhood.  Never mind, of course, that she originally voted against creating the exact development she ended up moving into years later.

Yet, despite the opposition, council took the bigger view on this issue, and approved the application.  Good for them.  Too bad they didn’t do the same for the proposed development down the road adjacent to the River Garden Inn.  Can’t win them all I suppose.

The citizens of Stratford can soon let loose a collective sigh of relief as their infamous protagonist, Larry Ryan, relinquishes possession of the Cooper Site after of over 10 years of in-action and legal bickering with the city.

As mentioned earlier, the city had been engaged in an expropriation process to gain the Cooper Site in downtown Stratford for the development of a new campus for the University of Waterloo.  After an appraisal, the city offered Ryan $500,000 (it was appraised at $4.5 million if it was environmentally clean).  Ryan, of course, balked and things continued in court.

However, it isn’t hard to imagine that Ryan’s mortgagee, Republic Mortgage Investment, was getting nervous that they wouldn’t see the $3.9 million they were owed on the property and started putting pressure on Ryan to settle.  After all, Ryan had been offered even more money over the years for the property from large retailers looking to locate in the city’s downtown core.  He never sold, continued to hold onto his fantasy of developing the site, and walked away from offers that would have left him with much more money in his pocket.

As part of this deal, Ryan will end up getting $566,935.  It’s a bitter pill to swallow for Stratford’s taxpayers; however, given that Ryan gained possession of the property for less than a quarter of a million dollars over a decade ago, you can bet most of his windfall will be eaten up by capital gains taxes, and head right back to the government’s coffers (just not Stratford’s unfortunately). 

And, remember, while the city could have held out through the expropriation process to pay less, this way they avoid court costs and potentially paying an amount that could have been close to what was agreed upon anyway.  More importantly, now the University of Waterloo plans for the downtown core can move ahead without Ryan’s dark cloud hanging over the project.  The results of the city’s investment will be enormous not only for downtown, but the entire community, so better to move on than to continue the court battle. 

Will this be the end of Larry?  One can hope, but I’m sure he and defeated former Councillor Lloyd Lichti could put on one last show and run for office this fall.  Stay tuned …

Reading today’s Stratford Beacon Herald I was actually surprised to read that council had axed a proposed six-storey apartment development at the corner of Delamere and Romeo in Stratford.

Sure the neighbours were upset with the usual list of complaints – “I like density (just not close to my house);” ”Apartments are ugly (compared to my house);” “An apartment will lower my property values (as opposed to the real estate bubble doing it for me).”  But the development made sense – it was at a major intersection, made use of vacant land and would provide new apartment units for the community’s aging population.

The proposed development was to take place on a portion of a parking lot that services the River Garden Inn.  It has been a parking lot for as long as I remember and single-family homes have sprung up around it, replacing what was once farmland.  The location made sense – after all, building an apartment at the intersection of an arterial and collector road is one of the best locations for such a development.  And, quite frankly, given that it is a parking lot and its location within an expanding city, it will probably be developed in the future anyway.

Yes, the design was probably tough to get over, as these proposals in smaller towns and cities typically are.  However, design is always something you can work with and improve via the site plan process.  You never get what you want, as beauty is in the eye of the beholder, and trusting design to councillors and bureaucrats is always a crap-shoot, but it has to be better than living beside a parking lot?

I guess I’ll never understand the Stratford fascination with parking lots – people really seem to like them in Stratford.  Just like neighbours in this neighbourhood complained to save the parking lot next door from being turned into something more useful, citizens from all over Stratford complained a number of years ago about another multi-storey development on a parking lot downtown.  Some even complained the city was taking away their “historical” parking lot.  That proposal, oddly by the same developer, was also denied.

So while the city’s planning department recommended approval, council unanimously voted to kill the project.   The neighbours were happy of course.  Their wild accusations validated and acknowledged.  Whether this goes to the Ontario Municipal Board - as this decision highlights once again the need for such a body – is any one’s guess.  My view would be that the proposed development would have a good chance of winning; however, maybe the developer will learn to love the parking lot and the lower taxes he’ll continue to pay on that piece of property.

One thing is certain though, this is yet another sign that it is municipal election season.  After all, why else would councillors reject an application based on such sound planning principles?  Or, maybe this is democracy in action – you know, democracy, where people act in the short-term interest of getting re-elected, rather than the long-term interest of the community.

Ever since I was a teenager I’ve enjoyed elections – especially municipal elections.  I ran in my first municipal election at the age of 19, it took me two more elections to get elected, but I enjoyed every one of them.

There’s always a different perspective on the job from those running for office and the incumbents.  One issue that always seems to arise is how much councillors and the mayor earn.

Admittedly, when I ran for council the second time, I took on the issue of councillor pay.  The mighty ones in Stratford had given themselves an increase so they could earn the hefty amount of $9,000 a year.  People, including myself, were outraged.  I tried to play this outrage into a council seat for myself – all to no avail.

After my third and successful run for a council seat I soon realized that for the amount of work required $9,000 was a pittance.  Yes, public service is a honour, but as a full-time university student eating was way more important.  Needless to say one of the reasons I ended up not running for a second-term was the fact that nobody can survive on $9,000 a year and its hard to start a career with a company if you need to have odd hours off to attend meetings. 

This is probably why in smaller towns and cities the face of council tends to be retired, male and white, as opposed to being more representative of the community.  After all, if you can’t live on the proceeds of the position, it’s hard to justify living in poverty, especially if you have a family to feed.

Yes in bigger municipalities politicians do make more money – in Toronto for instance councillors make $99,153 and the mayor takes in $166,985; and, to the west in Mississauga, councillors bring in $126,320 plus a car allowance and Mayor Hazel earns $179,744.  Yes, it pays more to govern in Mississauga than it does in Toronto.

What people don’t seem to realize is that being a councillor or mayor eats up all of your time – you no longer have your time, you only have the constituents’ time.  I used to do my groceries at 2 in the morning to avoid having to talk to people while I was doing my shopping – people get angry if you don’t spend time talking to them, no matter how jammed your schedule.  Other times you just want to be left alone, but if you go into public, that is not an option as a municipal representative.  Never mind the countless meetings – as a councillor in Stratford it was considered a part-time job; but the meeting schedule and prep-time often exceeded 40 or 50 hours a week if you did the job correctly. 

Two of the candidates that are running in Toronto have pledged to roll-back wages on councillors and the mayor.  Mayoral candidate Rocco Rossi has said he’ll roll-back the mayor’s wage, while another candidate has pledged to roll-back councillor salaries by 40%.  That’s fine – work for free.  Some people don’t mind work for free – because they have wealth from other sources to pay the bills.  Take New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg who spent $85 million of his own money to get re-elected to a job that pays a fraction of what he spent to get the position.

What I find interesting about the entire municipal politician wage debate is this – people are always saying that government should be run like a business.  Well, if that’s the case, it would have to pay its board of directors (councillors and mayor) a much higher wage.  Mayoral candidate Councillor Giorgio Mammoliti’s comment probably summed this up best:

“(The city) has 50,000 employees, and for some reason, for the last eight years or so, we have been picking on 44 employees, who make the policy, who work 24 hours a day. If you pay peanuts. You get monkeys.”

Or vain rich people who won’t give up the job.

While governments and environmentalists from the world over gather in Copenhagen to hammer out a successor to the Kyoto Protocol, it’s what is happening in the private sector that people should look to for answers in dealing with rising emissions and climate change.

I must confess that I’ve lost faith in governments to deal with rising emissions - quite frankly the targets they debate are meaningless and much lower than many in the private sector have already realized and implemented through their own measures, free of regulatory meddling.  The fact is not only have most governments been unable to get a handle on regulating emissions, but they haven’t been able to do much in reducing the emissions from their own operations.

Then there’s private sector companies like Interface Flooring – a carpet company which has the goal of transforming itself from a petrol heavy manufacturer into a zero waste and oil company by 2020.  How are they doing?  Their greenhouse gas emissions are down by 71% from their 1996 baseline, per unit of carpet energy consumption is down 44%, and, most importantly, their sales are up and growing thanks to products that are bio-based and fully recyclable. (See Ray Anderson speak.)  These are the types of companies we need.

While there’s no doubt Interface Flooring isn’t the norm, there are many other companies out there that realize not only do reduced emissions result in reduced costs but, more importantly, new business opportunities.  General Electric has turned their vision of green business into over $17 billion in sales since their launch of Ecomagination by hawking everything from efficient lightbulbs to hybrid trains.   And, we can’t forget Wal-Mart, who has turned sustainability mainstream by embracing greener products and forcing its supply chain to embrace greener practices all with the goal of not only reducing costs, but pushing better and greener products into the market place at a cheaper price.

Yes, it’s getting harder to hate Wal-Mart and their corporate colleagues – the fact is Wal-Mart has more weight to push sustainability globally than many countries.  And, they have an even more powerful stick – the market.  Yes, regulation can play a role – as can the threat of regulation – in pushing companies to embrace sustianability and reduce emissions.  But, at the end of the day, what these examples show is regulation or not, reducing inputs and waste, while providing a better product at a cheaper price, is the way not only to make more money, but also save the planet.

People often forget that the environmental movement started because there was a middle-class to care.  What allowed that middle-class to care was the wealth created from business.  So let the bureaucrats and environmentalists fly off to Copenhagen for their debates, and let’s reward those companies that give us better and greener products at a lower price.